


The long way round

by Colonel_Murph



Series: Where’s this going? [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas, Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, Ianto Jones has the sight, M/M, Psychic Abilities, The Gelth, Victorian era, the rift - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:09:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colonel_Murph/pseuds/Colonel_Murph
Summary: Two men wake up after death, surrounded by ash, thousands of years apart and yet crash together in 1869. This is their story.((on Temporary Hiatus))
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Where’s this going? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764727
Comments: 28
Kudos: 68





	1. A Toasty Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t suppose you need to have read Part One to enjoy this but feel free to check it out if you haven’t done so already :)

When Ianto Jones woke up covered in soot and ash, his attire resembling burnt rags more than any form of clothing he’d ever seen, he was rightfully concerned. When he remembered he’d blown up his place of work, the chapel of rest, to imprison the Gelth (angels from another world that turned out to be evil) in the rift, he thought it was possible he’d finally lost his mind.

And when upon climbing out of the still smoking rubble he couldn’t find Sneed, Rose, the Doctor or Dickens he knew he was in a whole lot of trouble. How was he to explain that he had survived such a fire when he himself had no idea? With no clothes, no money and no plan he did the only thing he could think of. He went to the pub.

Looking back he had no idea why he did this, he wasn’t a drinker, nor had he ever even frequented the establishment he ended up at. Sneed had strict rules about that sort of thing, but whatever cosmic force that led him to the ‘Boar and Apple’ he owed it his life.

Naturally as it was Christmas morning the pub was shut but what he was really searching for wasn’t inside anyway, it was standing off to the side in the alley down the way. Holding a bottle of something strong by the smell of it, staring straight back at him with wide, slightly glazed over eyes. The stranger captivated him, while the voices in his head were silent for the first time in years his own was screaming at him that this man was important. He was not to let him disappear. A thousand scenarios ran through Ianto’s mind, his gift had steered him majorly wrong just a day ago and he ended up dying but somehow not in the morgue. He had no idea if he could trust his own judgment.

Thankfully the man made the decision for him, stepping out of the alley with squinted eyes. He was tall, dressed in fine, if rumpled, clothes and Ianto couldn’t deny the fact he was handsome. Not that he was looking or anything. The man oozed intelligence, confidence and power. He took a long moment to compose what he wanted to say and Ianto prepared to hear something profound.

Instead he got ,“You’re… all toasty.”

And like the true fool he was, he replied, “No, I’m Ianto.” Maybe Rose had been right, he was an idiot.

“Oh,” the man opened his mouth but no more words came out.

Not sure if he should stay and continue their… attempt at a conversation, or simply turn around and walk off in the opposite direction, Ianto figured he might as well get the mans name if nothing else, “And you are?”

That seemed to kick him into gear, “Captain Jack Harkness,” he appeared more awake now, blinking away the glassiness in his eyes.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Ianto bowed his head slightly, “Captain.”

“Why are you…” he trailed off, his American accent intriguing Ianto as he was surely far from home, “Sorry, are you okay?” He asked, looking over his burnt clothes and sooty face, “You look like you climbed inside the undertakers while it was on fire last night.”

“No,” he didn’t join in with the other mans laughter, words tumbling out of his mouth without much thought, “I think I just climbed out of it.”

Sobering up, Jack’s laughter came to an abrupt halt, “You climbed out of it?”

He didn’t really have time for this, whoever this Captain Harkness was he was none of Ianto’s concern. He had to find Mr Sneed and get some answers, what had happened? His memories were in disarray, what had his angels, no, the Gelth done to him, “Have you seen a man anywhere?” The Doctor would surely have the answers he sought, the man who walked the stars as a lonely god, “He’ll be with a blonde lady and maybe Charles Dickens.”

Ianto wouldn’t have blamed the man for thinking him soft in the head, he knew what he was saying didn’t make a lick of sense and he surely looked like an urchin but Jack appeared to be hanging onto his every word, “This man,” he asked with urgency, “what was his name?”

“He never told me, sir,” Ianto shivered in the cold morning air, whatever energy had been keeping him on his feet was fast depleting as the cold air nipped at his exposed flesh, “called himself the Doctor. Are you quite alright?”

Captain Harkness nodded stiffly but Ianto could see his words had a profound effect on him, “We need to talk,” he looked around the empty street before nodding down towards the inn he’d been staying at since his abrupt arrival in this time, “privately.”

-

If you had told Ianto yesterday that he would be sat across from a man on Christmas Day claiming to be from the year 200,100, sipping from a glass of foul tasting ale and discussing time travel he would have thought you mad. That was before he’d met the Doctor and Miss Rose though, now? Now he believed every word Jack was telling him.

“They told me you died,” Jack was digging through the few items of clothing he’d managed to snatch since arriving, offering up a change of clothes to his new friend, “blew up a morgue to save the world from the Gelth? Rose told me you were a young boy, she never mentioned you were so… well, anyway,” he cleared his throat, “she told me you sacrificed yourself to save them.”

“I suppose I did, sir,” Ianto took the clean clothes he was offered and searched for somewhere to change, slipping behind a wooden screen in the corner of the room to do so. The shirt hung off his frame slightly and he had to roll up the hems on the trousers since his shoes had been beyond repair but they were clean from soot and would keep him warm enough.

“You died and they left you behind, huh,” Jack laughed humourlessly as he took a seat, finishing his drink with a shake of the head when Ianto joined him at the table once more, “join the club.”

“They left you too,” Ianto could feel a familiar pull as he looked at Jack but he was too bright, brighter than the Gelth had ever been, brighter than even the Doctor. He was burning up like a sun, scorching his mind, “You were protecting him, defending him so he could- ah” Ianto flinched, grabbing his forehead in pain but the images kept coming, “what are they?” It was like nothing he’d seen before, not even Miss Tyler had encountered these horrors, “Bodies made of metal, glowing blue eyes! Machines of death and destruction.”

“What are you doing? How do you know that?” Jack hadn’t felt another presence invade his mind but somehow Ianto had slipped past his defences undetected, ”How do you know about the Dalek’s?”

Panting, Ianto closed his eyes and calmed his mind, sure enough the memories slowly ebbed away until his mind was once again his own, “Sorry sir, begging your pardon but I can’t help it. I have the sight,” he bit his lip as he opened his eyes, staring into the face of the impossible man across from him, “I know it’s not my place, sir, but how is it that you’re here?” He asked, “You died, didn’t you?”

“So did you, how are you still here?” Jack parried, making a mental note to circle back round to this ‘sight’ business later when Ianto shrugged his shoulders in response, “I don’t have any answers, that’s why I’m here, but this thing malfunctioned and brought me back to the wrong time,” he told him, pulling up his shirt sleeve to reveal his vortex manipulator, “I’m lucky I even landed on Earth.”

“And you’re looking for the Doctor, are you Captain?” Ianto asked, “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“He’ll turn up eventually,” Jack told him confidently, “his ship uses the rift as fuel so all I’ve got to do is wait and I’ll find him.” He had to be careful not to interfere with his own timeline though, he had to be sure the Doctor he approached was one that had already left him behind or everything could go south very fast, “What about you?”

“Me, sir?” What about him?

As much as Jack was enjoying all this ‘sir’ and ‘captain’ business it was incredibly distracting, “Please, just call me Jack. A friend of the Doc’s is a friend of mine.”

“If you insist,” Ianto inclined his head, “Jack.”

“You could stick with me if you like, I mean no offence but you lost your home, your job and your boss all at once yesterday,” great Jack, he berated himself, that’s exactly what Ianto wanted to hear right now, “I only meant that you probably want answers from him as well? It makes sense for us to stay together, right?”

It’s not like Ianto had a better plan, surely two heads were better than one, “As long as it’s no trouble.”

Smiling genuinely for the first time since he landed in this time, Jack assured him, “None at all,” it would be nice to have some company and it didn’t hurt that Ianto was easy on the eyes under all that soot.

“So,” Ianto winced as he tried another sip of his ale, sliding it across the table towards Jack when the other man raised an eyebrow, “Do you have any idea why you ended up here of all places? It seem very lucky that you landed exactly where you need to be in order to find the Doctor.”

“It could have been the rift I suppose,” Jack mused as he started on Ianto’s drink as well, he’d yet to find anything strong enough to have any lasting effect on him but it never hurt to try, “if it burnt up mid jump it makes sense that it would lock onto the nearest energy disruption, give or take a few weeks, in this case that’d be you collapsing a bridge across the rift. Great big explosion of rift energy drawing me in like a magnet.”

What was Ianto supposed to say to that, “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be,” Jack knew he might be trapped but it was better here and now than even further back. At least they weren’t far off from the electric lightbulb, “it could have been much worse.” As much as he’d have appreciated Roman gladiators or Greek soldiers, the Victorians were a safer bet if his history was right.

Distant church bells ringing to announce the morning service interrupted their conversation and despite the circumstance, Ianto found himself smiling, “Merry Christmas, Jack.”

Raising his cup, Jack toasted, “Merry Christmas, Ianto Jones.”


	2. The Yellow Gun

It had broken Ianto’s heart to sell Old Sampson and Timothy but as Jack had pointed out at the time, they had no use of his recently departed masters horses but they _were_ in desperate need of funds. The hearse fetched a pretty penny too, Mr Locksworth had offered his condolences but Ianto could see past the charade, he’d been Sneed’s biggest rival and was glad to see him gone.

“Wow,” Jack whistled as the two of them walked down the street together with significantly less empty pockets, “you did not like him, did you?” In the three weeks they’d spent together since having met outside the ‘Boar and Apple’ on Christmas morning, Ianto had been nothing but polite and soft spoken in his presence, he had no idea the man was even capable of glaring, “I’m surprised his head didn’t spontaneously combust from how hard you were glaring at him, you can tell me,” Jack whispered jokingly, “does the sight allow you to blow up peoples heads?”

“Stop it,” Ianto frowned down at his shoes, not appreciating being mocked when he was already feeling retched, “Mr Locksworth was the bane of my masters life, he’d be turning in his grave if he knew I’d sold him the hearse.”

Still gauging Ianto’s sense of humour, Jack realised he might have overstepped, “Sorry,” he apologised, “I didn’t mean to… I know this can’t be easy for you.” He had to try and remind himself that Ianto’s entire world had been turned upside down, he was only human, it was going to take him some time to adjust, “Let’s go get a drink, it’s about time we find one that you actually like.”

“If you insist,” Ianto sighed, clearly resigned as he followed after Jack. In the last three weeks he’d done his best to be accommodating towards his new friend but the man hadn’t exactly made it easy, “perhaps we could discuss your plan to find the Doctor? I still don’t know-”

“We just have to keep our eyes open and our ears close to the ground,” Jack interrupted him, an annoying habit that tested Ianto’s patience near daily, “He’ll turn up eventually, we just need to be here when he does.”

That was his entire plan, to just sit around and wait, hoping for the best? Looks like he’d have to take over as strategist, “Maybe,” Ianto suggested hesitantly under Jack’s critical gaze, “we could…” trailing off, Ianto stopped in his tracks and frowned at thin air, “what’s that smell?” 

“Smell?” Jack sniffed the air, coming to a halt in the middle of the street next to him, “I don’t smell anything,” besides the usual 19th century stink that is.

Taking a deep breath in through his nose, Ianto felt a tingle in the back of his mouth followed by a faint aftertaste of copper, “It smells like the air before a storm but… not quite right,” a sharp pain struck him in the back of the skull and a flash of memory flickered behind his eyes, “I recognise that street,” he mumbled, blinking firmly as he tried to focus, “this way!”

Baffled, Jack watched his friend bolt back the way they’d come, jolting into gear only once he turned the corner, “Ianto!” giving chase he caught up with the younger man down a road he didn’t recognise a few minutes later, “What’s gotten into you?” He panted, “You can’t just run off like that!”

“Shh,” Ianto was spinning in slow circles, looking for something, “they’re here, I’m sure of it.”

“What?” Jack lowered his voice, “Who?”

Ianto didn’t answer him, standing as still as a statue in the middle of the road, deadly silent as he tried to focus on the feeling coursing through his veins, “there,” spinning on his heel he led a confused Jack down an abandoned alley and pointed a shaking finger behind an overturned bin, “they’re here.”

“Who?” Jack asked again but Ianto still refused him an answer, or maybe he was incapable of giving him one in this state, “Stay here, I’m going to take a look.” He didn’t know what he was expecting to find, Ianto was acting beyond strange but it couldn’t hurt to check it out.

Behind the bin, collapsed and injured on the ground sat a woman who clearly did not belong in 19th century Cardiff, sure she looked human enough but her clothes and weapons were a dead giveaway. Bounty hunter by the looks of her, _“Stop, don’t come any closer!”_ Ah, yes, Galactic Standard, definitely not 19th century Cardiff then, _“I said stop!”_

_“I mean you no harm,”_ Jack held his hands up when a blaster was pointed at him, _“You shouldn’t be here, Earth is a level 5 planet, strictly no visitors I’m afraid.”_

“Jack?” Ianto slowly crept up behind him, “What language is that?”

“Galactic standard,” wasn’t that going to be fun to explain later, he didn’t know Ianto all that well but he got the impression that the younger man would have a thousand and one questions once they got into it. Not that his curiosity was a particularly bad thing mind, “she’s not from around here.”

“She fell from the stars,” he’d seen it. She had been inside a metal box, sleek and shiny, flying through the stars before getting caught between a crossfire. There had been bright red lights and deafening bells ringing in her ears before everything turned upside down, or was it inside out? Either way, she’d ended up here without much choice in the matter, “Tumbled through the rift and landed here.”

“The rift?” Huh, Jack pondered, “I didn’t think the rift was active.”

It wasn’t supposed to be, “I sealed the bridge from the Gelth, she shouldn’t have been able to fall through,” what if more people fell through and became stranded all because of him? This was all his fault, “What have I done? She’s hurt.”

“This wasn’t you Ianto,” he couldn’t have him believing this was his fault, the rift had always been hidden under Cardiff, like a dormant volcano waiting to erupt, “I think the rift is just waking up, the Gelth are the ones who disturbed the calm, if anyone they’re to blame for all this.”

_“Halt your communications!”_ The woman was losing a lot of blood, turning paler by the second, _“Why did you bring me here?”_

_“We didn’t bring you here,”_ Jack stepped in front of Ianto to shield the younger man when he noticed the woman’s shaking trigger finger, _“but we can help you. I’m Captain Jack Harkness and this is my friend Ianto Jones, wh-”_

_“Lies!”_ Ianto may not understand her words but he recognised the look in her eyes. Wild and crazy, desperate like a wounded animal backed into a corner. He knew she would lash out at any second but that knowledge didn’t prepare him nearly enough for when she pulled the trigger. 

“Jack!” He was too late, even as he pulled the other man back a beam of bright yellow light erupted out of the woman’s strange gun, heading straight towards them, “Ah!” Collapsing to the ground in pain, Ianto clutched his right shoulder as the flesh bubbled under his palm. At least it hadn’t hit Jack.

“Ianto!” Falling to the damp cobble beneath his feet, Jack instinctively cradled the injured man with no idea what to do. The woman was the least of his concerns as she too slumped down, splayed across the cold cobble unconscious, probably dead, he only had eyes for Ianto, “Hey, keep your eyes open,” he tried to pry his hand away from where he’d been hit, “let me take a look.”

“Hurts,” the pain was excruciating, through gritted teeth he forced the words out and ignored the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes, “Feels like fire.”

Once he got a better look Jack felt sick, his cotton shirt had fused to the skin, Ianto’s entire upper arm and shoulder was a mess of bubbled flesh and scorched back muscle was visible in places, “You’re going to be fine,” no he wasn’t, “I’m here,” but what good was he?

“It’s,” Ianto blinked frantically as darkness clouded his vision, “it’s not your fault,” Jack’s blue eyes the last thing he saw before everything went dark.


	3. Hard Cobbles

Ianto didn’t know what to expect when the darkness took over, when he’d stepped beneath the archway back in the morgue his death had been quick and somewhat temporary. He couldn’t even remember it, one moment he had been trying to save the world from the Gelth and the next he had woken up surrounded by ashes. This time was different.

He was shrouded in darkness, black inky nothingness engulfed him and he was completely alone. Had he died? A second time? Somehow he doubted he’d be given a third chance at life, he could only hope that Jack was safe from that strange woman who’d fallen through the rift. Perhaps it was right for her to take his life when his own actions had caused her to lose hers. Suddenly a noise interrupted him from his thoughts, he didn’t recognise it at first but after a few moments it became clear that someone was crying, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t him. 

It was somehow muffled in his ears and Ianto had no idea where it was coming from but it was definitely crying. Just as he was beginning to wonder if this was his eternal punishment, being forced to listen to such a heartbreaking sound for eternity, it felt like his feet were being ripped out from under him. Every nerve in his body lit up like a thousand candles, his lungs gasped in a ginormous breath and his eyes shot open to stare into the teary blue ones belonging to none other than Jack.

“Jack,” his head was swimming and the situation was made indefinitely worse when he was ejected from the warm cradle of Jack’s arms and dropped unceremoniously to the hard cobbles below. It appeared that Jack had been carrying him for some reason and had decided to drop him like a hot coal, “bleedin’ hell what was that for?”

“Ianto,” Jack was just staring at him with wide, confused eyes, “you- how did you- you were dead!”

“Was I?” He climbed to his feet and carefully prodded his healed shoulder, “How did you bring me back to life?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Jack protested, taking half a step back as if he was afraid or something, “are you even human?”

“Of course I’m human,” Ianto scoffed, trying not to panic about what it meant if Jack truly had nothing to do with his miraculous revival. Meeting Jack’s eye, Ianto felt his fear echoed quietly in the back of his mind but he wasn’t just afraid, “you think I’m some sort of freak,” somehow that hurt more than the strange yellow light.

“Stop that,” Jack snapped, “stop invading my mind!”

It’s not like he could help it, Ianto shrank in on himself as Jack’s anger thrummed through his head too, he’d been born this way and it was getting worse. Before it had only been memories, flashes of images if he tried but for some reason Jack was different. He had no control over it, “I don’t mean to, I swear. It’s the sight-”

“Quiet,” Jack pushed him down the road quickly, glancing over his shoulder as someone screamed in the alley he’d been trying to get them away from. He had known it would only be a matter of time before someone stumbled across the woman’s body and he’d wanted to get as far away from the alley as possible. He just hadn’t been expecting Ianto’s corpse to gasp to life in his arms as he fled the scene, “We need to get out of here, come on.” As suspicious as he was of Ianto, he was the only person he knew with a connection to the Doctor, if he ever wanted to be reunited with him and Rose it was a safe bet to keep the other man close. 

“Where are we going?” Ianto asked as Jack dragged him down the street in the opposite direction of where they’d been staying, “Jack?”

“We’re going this way,” he snapped, “that’s where we’re going!”

Rolling his eyes, Ianto tugged his arm free and stood his ground, “You do know this road leads to a dead end?” Jack might be from the future, from the stars, but right now he was on earth. In Cardiff and that was Ianto’s territory, it was about time he started treating him like an equal and not some lost puppy he’d picked up from the side of the road. He’d saved the mans life back in that alley, the least he could do was say thank you, “As good a tactician as you think you are, maybe just for once you could trust in my local knowledge?” 

“You expect me to trust you?” Jack shook his head, “You were dead, people don’t just come back to life Ianto.”

“They also don’t claim to be from the future and speak gibberish to women who shoot at them,” Ianto shrugged his shoulders and took a step in the opposite direction, “I’m going back to our rooms, I suppose it’s up to you if you follow.”

He tried not to smile too obviously when he heard Jack’s footsteps following him soon after.

-

Back in their rooms Jack had fiddled with his fancy time travelling bracelet and asked if he could scan him, not sure what he meant exactly but prepared to do whatever it took to keep Jack from storming off again, Ianto accepted. In the end all Jack did was point his bracelet at him and sit down with a confused pout, “You’re completely human.”

“Of course I am,” Ianto had already known that, “I was born right here in Cardiff.”

“The two aren’t always mutually exclusive,” Jack defended himself with a frown, deep in thought, “and you died Ianto. You died in my arms and came back to life. That isn’t normal,” frankly he didn’t understand how Ianto could be so calm about this, if Jack had found out he couldn’t die, he’d already be in the pub drowning his sorrows, drinking himself into oblivion. 

Ianto looked down at his hands with sad eyes, “I’ve never been normal,” for as long as he could remember he’d been different, a freak just like Jack thought, what was one more abnormality to add to the list?

“The Doctor will be able to fix you,” Jack scrounged up a smile, one that Ianto would have been able to tell was completely fake if he had even bothered to look up, “just try not to die again till we find him, eh?” He tried for jovial and missed it by a mile, “This could have just been a one time thing after all.”

“Maybe I should go,” Ianto rubbed his forehead with a sigh, a memory belonging to Jack flashing behind his tired eyes. This one was of The Doctor and Rose, they were dancing together in a strange room with even stranger decorations adorning the domed walls, “The sight is getting stronger, I can’t control it.”

“Maybe,” Jack dithered, not yet ready to let him go, “maybe you just need practice? I could help you if you like,” the time agency had taught him some basic mental shielding techniques, perhaps Ianto could learn. As suspicious of the man as he was, it was impossible to deny that without him he’d be dead. If Ianto hadn’t stepped in front of that blaster…

“Sure,” Ianto looked just as skeptic as he felt but for some reason that just made Jack even more certain he’d made the right decision, “thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you want more, though to be fair I’m gonna keep posting regardless :) You’re not my real dad, you can’t stop me!


End file.
